A kind of reunion

This evening I invited two friends / colleagues to dinner who had never before met each other, because it just seemed that the two of them had a lot in common intellectually, and that they really needed to meet.

After the three of us settled down to dinner, I pretty much sat back and watched the two of them interact, and I was not disappointed. It was a joy to see two people meet for the first time who had independently spent many years pondering the same deep questions with a roving and intelligent mind.

I was reminded of that old folk belief that we each have a spiritual family scattered throughout the world. Not the family we were born into, but a family that shares a common soul. According to this belief, when we meet our spiritual brothers and sisters, we will recognize them at once.

Such an encounter can feel less like a first time meeting than a kind of reunion. Tonight I feel that I was witness to such a reunion.